5 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1755. 



CI. Observations on the Abbe Mazeas's Letter on the Count de Cayluss Method 



of Imitating the Ancient Painting in Burnt fVax. By James Parsons^ M. D., 



F. R. S. p. 655. 



The subject of the Abbe Mazeas's letter, concerning what he thinks the en- 

 caustic painting in burnt wax, is very difficult to understand ; for though the 

 count de Caylus has made an essay to find out the method of the ancients in that 

 kind of painting, his success in the head of Minerva mentioned in the Abbe's 

 letter, does not seem to explain Pliny's meaning. This author is so very short 

 and obscure in most things, that a bare literal translation of some parts of his 

 work would hardly be reconcileable to sense ; and this is no where more evident 

 than in this very subject. 



The two principal methods tried at Paris cannot be called burning in wax, nor 

 be counted encaustic painting ; unless uro, or the Greek x»iw, could signify to 

 liquify as well as to burn, in which sense I never met them any where. And 

 if these words mean only to burn, then encaustic painting can signify no more 

 nor less than painting in enamel ; in which wax, from its very nature, can have 

 no share. And yet at the end of the 1 Ith chapter of his 35 th book, he seems 

 to give uro another meaning : he is admiring the wonderful effects produced in 

 dying stuffs, which being first scowered, are laid over with some colourless ma- 

 terial, in whatever pattern they choose ; and on being dipped in a caldron of 

 boiling liquor, the stuffs appeared to be finely and variously painted ; " Cortina 

 pingit dum coquit ; et adustae vestes firmiores sunt, quam si non urerenter." 

 Here uro must signify to boil ; for we cannot say the burnt stuffs were become 

 stronger, than if they had not been burnt. 



In the same book he has these words : 



" It appears, that anciently there were two kinds of encaustic painting, in wax, 

 and in ivory, with a stilus ; until ships began to be painted : then this third kind 

 came up of using a brush or pencil, with wax melted by fire, &c." Now though 

 Pliny uses the word pingendi in the first two, we cannot understand that he 

 could mean the laying on of paint, since the instrument (the oestrum) being 

 pointed, is incapable of such an office ; and secondly, because he immediately 

 mentions a third kind of painting distinct from, and an absolute contrast to the 

 other two, which the paint with the melted wax was laid on with a brush ; and 

 this contrast is very strong in another passage in the same chapter, where he 

 speaks of a famous virgin called Lala, of whom he says, " Romae et penicillo 

 pinxit, et cestro in ebore, imagines mulierum maxume." That is she painted at 

 Rome with a pencil, and with a oestrum or stilus on ivory, chiefly the images or 

 portraits of women. We cannot help thinking, that what was done with the 

 oestrum, either on the wax or ivory, was modelling or carving ; for the modellers 

 of this day, in their compositions of wax and other materials, use pointed tools to 



